Paula Hawkins, Jamie Oliver and Yuval Noah Harari among a host of Penguin Random House authors celebrated at the Specsavers Bestseller Awards

COMPANY NEWS

Paula Hawkins, Jamie Oliver and Yuval Noah Harari among a host of Penguin Random House authors celebrated at the Specsavers Bestseller Awards

26 January 2018

Last night (25 January) saw the Specsavers Bestseller Awards, powered by Nielsen, celebrate the authors of the most successful books of 2017 at a prestigious event at London's May Fair hotel, hosted by Mariella Frostrup. The winners included a fantastic range of authors from across all Penguin Random House, with Paula Hawkins' publishing phenomenon The Girl on the Train reaching triple platinum status for selling over 3 million copies.

The awards honour bestselling titles with reach significant sales milestones, as recorded by Nielsen Book. In total 23 Penguin Random House titles were celebrated for reaching either 250,000 (Silver), 500,000 (Gold) or 1,000,000 (Platinum) copies sold during 2017 - ranging from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (Silver Award), originally published in 1985 to Jamie Oliver's 5 Ingredients (Gold Award), only released last August.

Platinum Awards: Official Sales of over 1 million in the UK

Transworld had two titles that were awarded Platinum status for UK book sales in the 21st century: Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, and Lee Child's Killing Floor: Jack Reacher. Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train - was given Triple Platinum status - highlighting the book's impact as a perennial bestseller since its launch in 2015.

In addition, Penguin Random House Children's saw awards go to Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules by Jeff Kinney, and Matilda and The Twits by Roald Dahl.

Gold Award: Official Sales of over 500,000 in the UK

Jamie Oliver's 5 Ingredients (Michael Joseph), the UK's bestselling title of 2017, picked up a Gold Award, with over half a million copies sold since last August. Vintage's Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari also came away with a Gold Award, as did The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Vintage) and The Martian by Andy Weir (Ebury).

Accepting his award, Yuval Noah Harari said: "I thank Specsavers and Nielsen Book for the Specsavers Bestseller Awards, and I am grateful to the hundreds of thousands of readers who chose to spend their time (and money) on my books. I hope that in exchange, they got some clarity about where we humans have come from, and where we are heading."

Three Transworld titles also won Gold Awards: Dead Famous by Ben Elton, The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena (Transworld), and Origin by Dan Brown.

Silver Awards: Official Sales of over 250,000 in the UK

Yuval Noah Harari also picked up a Silver Award for Homo Deus, the sequel to Sapiens. Cornerstone's Darker by E. L. James, the latest in the 50 Shades of Grey series and Conclave by Robert Harris were also given Silver Awards, as were Transworld's Night School by Lee Child, Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, and My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella.

Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One was awarded Silver, despite only being published in October this year. Tom Fletcher came away with two Silver awards for The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet! (co-authored with McFly bandmate Dougie Poynter) and The Christmasaurus. The pair said:

“We are so excited to pick up this award for a quarter of a million sales of The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet! Thank you to all our readers who have come with us on our pooptastic journey! We’d also like to take this opportunity to announce a brand new Pooping Dinosaur adventure coming this autumn, The Dinosaur That Pooped a Princess will be published this September and this time our hungry dinosaur has his eyes on the land of fairytales!"